For COM333 textual description for February 13

Better organization saved my nerves and (I think) produced a better result

A story I interviewed for on Friday is going to be more complicated, and may serve better as a video piece. But the same afternoon presented the opportunity to report on Douglas Rushkoff’s visit to Vancouver and the story that goes with it.

I tried a different tactic for this audio piece. On previous weeks I’ve suffered over those illusive word gobs that skitter away or break off like wild horses.This week I decided to attack my nemesis with order. Here’s what I did.

1. I listened to the entire recording, transcribing parts I thought I might want to use. I wrote down the timer where each clip was located in the recording.

2. I went back and reviewed my results. I actually transcribed verbatim the parts I wanted to use, so that I would feel very confident of the content of my clips and the choices I made.

3. I reviewed the results on paper, and I felt I made better decisions about which clips I should use.

4. I dumped what I thought were the best clips into a table as you see below, and then started writing my script, which ended up taking very little time.

5. Finally I started depositing the sound clips onto the tracks in Audacity, and it too, took only a few minutes.

6. The hardest part was cutting the piece down to two minutes, because I had three minutes of material I wanted to use. But I learned that I could take out a repetitive phrase here and an interesting but non-essential tidbit there, and finally got it pared down.

I hope you like the result, and that I’ll see you at Rushkoff’s visit or out doing your part to share digital ethics within your sphere.

Every city has its secrets and, every now and again, they see the light of day. When Moscow began its biggest road reconstruction project to date, workers uncovered treasures that had been hidden for centuries.